Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Many of you know that I have accelerated the writing of my second novel, Arlen’s Harem. February 1st was the original date target, then March 1st. Well, it looks like the target date will have to be moved again. I hope my supporters are okay with that.

I’m taking a short break from it to do some research on and write about Kenya’s role in the War on Terror, as requested by one of my readers. And this is something which may have a dual purpose, as it could be a part of a longer work about my father’s home country.

Now that Barack Obama has galloped off into the sunset, there might not be that much interest in the country anymore. However, for obvious reasons, I’m still interested and I hope that a few others are as well.

To begin a small primer on the topic, start with Kenya's Dadaab. It's the largest refugee camp in the world and the refugees are, primarily, Somalis--both in the ethnic and citizenship sense.

Monday, February 13, 2017

I’m not a shrink but I’ve had 55.5 years of having to ponder and dust off the shame which others try to heap on me, various motives not important. Of note also are those who will take offense for non-obvious reasons.

This is my conclusion: shame-mongers and offense-takers are always projecting.

An online friend gets angry every time anyone says that black Americans should get off the Democrat “plantation” or that the Great Society programs “re-enslaved” black Americans.

This friend says that it’s offensive whenever anyone uses metaphors/similes involving slavery to address problems within the black community, as if being offended is a more relevant problem than the dystopic state of most Democrat-controlled majority-black communities. My friend has been saying this for years, but still left unexplained is this: what, specifically, makes it offensive.

Slavery references are offensive only if one is ashamed of the servitude condition of one’s ancestors. It’s why some black people are still “mad” about the status in which their ancestors came to America.

They’re not angry, per se; they’re ashamed of it. And they want everyone else to feel it, too.